Rest for the Soul

As I talked about on my last post, I took a class that recently ended called "Renovation of the Heart." It has a tremendous impact on me and is continuing to have an impact on my as I attempt to continue walking in the spiritual disciplines that I developed through the class. The last couple weeks of the class ended up being very, very busy for me, so I have taken the couple weeks since it ended to slowly go through the last 3 chapters. One of the exercises that I went back and did from chapter 11 in the book had really impacted me the last couple weeks. I didn't really think it impacted me so much at the time I did it; I undertook the exercise b/c I wanted to be faithful to finish the class strong and not skimp out on the end of it. I have realized over the last couple weeks that it did impact my thinking.

I was to have Psalm 23 read out loud to me once through, then read again slowly pausing between each verse. ( I read it to myself). The I was to ask the Lord these two questions: 1)What needed to happen for my soul to be restored? 2) What is the first thing I need to do to find rest in you? I sat for quite a while asking and trying to be quiet and listen for the answers. Quite honestly, I was also dozing off a bit b/c I was really tired that day. I felt very impressed that the area of my life that I did not have rest in my soul was my children. I feel pretty much at peace, trusting and restful in most other areas of my life. I was not at rest in regard to my children. My lack of rest is a little different than one might think.

I trust the Lord with my children, or so I think. I do not trust myself, though, with my children. I feel like I have made so many mistakes raising them. I feel like I will realize later that I have continued to make mistakes with them. I try to do right by them. I try to make wise decision in regard to them, but, if I am being brutally honest, I feel like a failure in the area of parenting so much of the time. I didn't have much a role model growing up, and my role models when I started having children were extremely imbalanced. I am old enough to have seen the kids of the church I attended when I first met the Lord and had Ally grow to adults. There was a lot of hurt and mess they all had to work through due to the disciplinary measures and environments they grew up in. So I have tried to strike a balance between the uber discipline of that system and the lack of discipline I grew up in. I sure don't have it figured out and I am so grateful for God's grace and mercy. I have tried to be honest with my children about my weaknesses and struggles. I have tried to keep open communication and not be so dogmatic about what I thought that they wouldn't feel like they could talk to me. I try to apologize when I am wrong and take responsibility. I try to see things from their perspective and not see "different" as "wrong". I never wanted to be one of those moms who put down the kids music and acted like the music from my childhood was so much better. I try to remember how frustrating it was when my parents hated my music, so I listen to their music with them and find that I actually end up like a lot of it. I try not to get overly wrapped up in how they dress, what they do to their hair, etc; I try to encourage the dreams or interests they have and not force my expectations or dreams for their lives on them. I have tried to do the best I can...

But I know that I am not always easy to deal with. I can be irritable. I put way too much pressure on poor Alexandra when she was younger. I have drug them from church to church and only in the last year have put down roots. I have not raised them in an environment to really learn what the Word of God says or how to walk with Jesus. We don't eat dinner as a family and never have. We don't pray together like we should or read the bible as a family. They watched me struggle and lose the battle with alcohol for quite a while. They have grown up in an environment where we have struggled with money their whole lives. Things could definitely be worse, but they haven't gotten to travel or go on vacations. They don't get a lot of extra stuff. They have had to wear worn out clothes or what ever we were given. All this material stuff may sound silly to most, but I just always wanted them to be able to do more than I was able to do. I wanted them to see other parts of the world. I wanted them to be able to do sports, or art, or dance, or whatever. We just have not really been able to do that very much. I was always so busy when they were babies. I didn't learn how to play as a child, so I wasn't very good at just sitting down to play games with them or pretend. I didn't do crafts and fun stuff. Sometimes I wish that I could have them as children now b/c I didn't really appreciate the time I had with them. I wasn't good at being silly with them.

Anyway, enough of that. The point is... I am very aware of the mistakes that I have made. I know that no one is perfect, but I don't really feel like I did as good of a job as I could have. Not that it is all over. I still have years to invest, love and impact them. I just feel like some of the more formative years could have been better. So, I have really struggled with fear that I have messed up my children. I have been afraid that I have damaged them and that they will have a harder life b/c of me or maybe even not serve God b/c of me. Like I said, I trust God, but I have not trusted myself. I have felt like maybe someone else could have done better or maybe I could have done a better job if I had started later in life. What God showed me is that the root of not trusting myself really boils down to not trusting Him.

He gently, over the weeks after asking Him to show me what needed to happen for me to find "soul rest" in Him in regard to my children, started to peel back layers and give me a realistic picture of the truth. I have peace in my life over every thing that happened to me growing up and all the pain. I am at peace with that fact that His grace has carried me throughout my entire life. He knew everything that would happen and how I would react to it and the outcome of it all. He knew when I would walk into that church where I accepted Him as my Creator and Savior. He prepared my heart so that the words of David Fees would penetrate my heart and bring me to my knees. He opened my heart and eyes to set me on the path of the Kingdom. He even chose my parents to be who they are knowing how broken and incapable they were.....

Now, if that is the case for me. If He loves me and His grace carried me and brought me to exactly the place to have my whole world turned upside down and put me on the path of serving Him. Then the same is the case for each of my children. He loves them more than I will ever be able to comprehend. He chose me as their mother. He chose the timing that each of them would be conceived and born. He chose Ally's genetic father. He chose Larry as Stephens father and chose the timing that he would be conceived. He chose Larry to be Ally's father and ordained that they would love each other beyond any genetic differences. God chose me to be mother to each of the three, Ally, Stephen, and Chloe knowing every struggle I have, knowing every mistake I would make raising them, and knowing the outcome of it all. Nothing I have done has been a surprise to Him or thrown a kink into His plan for them. A friend wisely said to me, "Do you think you are powerful enough to mess up God's plan?" Even after that I still struggled with really resting in God's grace for me and my children. But, when God broke it down so intricately, I finally got it. He chose me, knowing how hard it would be for me to raise them and how many mistakes I would make and He actually wove into the fabric of each of their lives and His plan for them all of those variables. It all comes together for good. It all works out. Just as my temperament and environment would shape me into exactly what would balance my husband and how his temperament and environment would shape him to bring about one beautiful union and person out of two.

I have found soul rest. I pray for my children every day and ask God to be merciful and call them to himself. I ask him to set into motion those things that need to be to bring them to where he wants them to be and to do whatever it takes to bring about the most eternal significance and the most authentic and sincere relationship possible. I trust Him to bring that to pass. Salvation belongs to the Lord. I cannot save my children; I cannot make them serve God. I cannot control or protect them enough to guarantee they will have not pain or turn their hearts to God. We all need God's grace and mercy to come to know Him and all we can call upon in regard to our children is His grace and mercy. They will only serve Him if He opens their hearts to serve Him. We can plant seeds, put the kindling around their hearts and model the kingdom, but only God can light the fire. I will continue to seek to be faithful to my children, pray for my children and love them, but I won't fret and worry anymore, b/c He knows all and took all into account.

Below is a really neat scene from a movie I saw a while back that I think illustrates so beautifully how God can set into motion a chain of events that will place us where we need to be when we need to be there.

Stop the Flow

Finally another post

Man, has it been hard to find the time to blog. I have gone from posting every single day to posting once a week or every ten days. And, believe me, it is not that I don't have anything to say. I am just drowning in things to do. It really drives me crazy and has been a matter of prayer for me. I really want to figure out a way to schedule a daily time to write. There are just so many things that need to be taken care of and I have to make certain things a high priority. That means that the things I would like to do, like write and sew sometimes never happen.

Today I was thinking about The Kingdom of God. Actually, I have been thinking about it for weeks, but I decided to write about it today. I think the Body of Christ today is really missing a lot about the Kingdom. I think the reason that we seem to be so impotent and powerless is that we are so far off the mark and distracted that we cannot tap into the power of the Kingdom. Jesus spoke about the Kingdom over and over while he was here on the earth. Sometimes we miss it, though, in our reading b/c we have the preconceived ideas about what the kingdom is. We think of the Kingdom as coming when Jesus comes back or as the preaching of the Gospel so we can go to heaven. When we take the Gospel and make it about this event when we die we miss the point and have the wrong focus. We are being taught a lot about this at the church we attend. The Gospel, however, is not about membership in a church, which church we attend or about going to heaven when we die.

The Gospel is about now. It is about living the Kingdom now in all that we say and do. It is how we are created to live. I could probably write for days on the Kingdom and still not plumb the depths of, but the Kingdom as a whole is not what has been rolling around in my mind today. What I have been thinking about is the scripture in Romans 12:2 which says, "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, acceptable and perfect will of God is." I really love the translations by JB Phillips, “Do not let the world squeeze you into its mould, but instead let yourself be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

What really strikes me this morning is that we unknowingly allow the world to squeeze us into its mold. I have always thought of this as me not doing "as the world does". I have seen it as sin. If I don't have sex outside of marriage, or beat people up, or treat people poorly, etc. then I am okay and am not letting myself be conformed to the world. The old don't do "sinful" things way of thinking. I have begun to see very clearly that this statement goes so much deeper. When I let my standards of success be dictated by "worldly" standards and not the Word of God, when I let the world tell me what I should spend my money on or how I should spend my time, then I am not letting my mind be renewed. When I allow my family to struggle financially and let my husband carry the stress of bills we cannot afford so that I can have "the house, car, clothes," or whatever makes me "look successful" to everyone else around me, that is letting myself be squeezed into a mold. When I consume all of my resources on me and things I don't necessarily need, knowing that my money would be better spent supporting a ministry that is bringing food and water to orphans who otherwise have nothing, I am not letting my mind be renewed. When I hold a grudge and refuse to forgive and be reconciled to anyone, regardless of who was right or wrong, I am not taking up my cross and seeking first the Kingdom. When I gossip and judge people for how they dress or act, instead of reaching out with love in my heart, I am letting the standards of the world squeeze me into a mold. As a Christian I am held to a higher standard and it is a tough standard. We are called as Christians to suffer. That is what the call of the cross is. It is not about wonderful feelings and everything being nice and easy. It is about dying daily; it is about losing my life, so I can find it in Christ; it is about knowing it is no longer me who lives, but Christ who lives in me. That is not easy; that is about suffering. Being a Daughter of the kingdom means giving up my rights, and my space and my stuff. It means that if I have one sandwich to my name and I see a stranger who has nothing that I am willing to split my one and only sandwich so that we can both have some, instead of me having enough and someone else having nothing. It means not being right all the time or even having the "right" to whatever I think I deserve. It means being willing to apologize to someone even if I am not wrong simply so that I can be a bringer of peace. It is being willing to do whatever is necessary to make a relationship right. Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the Sons of God." I want to be called a son of God, but am I willing to do what it takes to be given that title. The Gospel is not easy and we have been fed such a watered down version that it has lost its power. Jesus, when He called each of us to be His child, really called us to be a servant to every person we encounter. He called us to suffer the loss of our identity, our allegiance to this world and our very life. He calls us to lose the life we came to Him with, so we can find the life He has for us. We have to give up our right to control our lives and have things how we want them. We must surrender everything to Him and walk in love. When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus stated, "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all our soul, with all you mind, and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself." This is a hard saying if you really think about what it asks you. If you really try to see the implications of living that out and don't just read it as a "nice little scripture", then it is a hard saying. It is a saying that we are so so so far from living out. A couple chapter before, in Mark 8, Jesus talks about denying ourselves, taking up the cross and following Him. I wonder how much we really deny ourselves. I wonder what would happen if we started really denying ourselves and putting others needs ahead of our wants; what would the world begin to look like?

The Gospel is not easy; the Kingdom does not fit into our way of life here, but the reward of allowing God to reshape our lives into the Kingdom is so far beyond anything we could imagine that I long for and cry out to God that He would change me and make me a Daughter of the Kingdom. I want to be changed so maybe I can spread the movement of the Kingdom. It seems huge and impossible, but "with God all things are possible." Maybe if He can help me see and change and live my life based on the Kingdom then I can help other people begin to change. It could be like a virus that begins to spread, a movement. Then maybe, some of the terrible things that we see in our world could cease to be. Maybe love could really begin to conquer hate, and good could begin to conquer evil. Maybe if we were all servants to each other, then in serving each would have his or her needs met, because as we serve, others would serve us.

Crazy, idealistic, hard, yeah, but totally possible b/c that is how Jesus lived and how He called us to live. Really it leads to total freedom.